EGGPLANT PARMIGIANA

I love eggplant Parmigiana but I hate making it. It feels like I have to make multiple dishes in order to get to the final dish, and then the leftovers are kind of stodgy and heavy and not really all that good.

And then mine eyes were opened in, of all places, Amsterdam. We had the Eggplant Parmigiana of our dreams. Truly.

Eggplant Parmigiana at De Blaffende Vis

Our favorite watering hole also makes excellent food. We’d planned to go elsewhere our first night there but we were really tired and De Blaffende Vis is around the corner from our apartment. There was a brief language keruffle – the daily chalkboard menu listed melanzane Parmigiana, which I translated to my husband, and he immediately told the Dutch waiter he’d have the eggplant.

:::Insert blank stare:::

The word eggplant means nothing in Dutch or actually, pretty much anywhere in the world except the US, so I re-translated back to Italian. (Not that I am a linguistics whiz; I just happened to know these words.)

What was set before us didn’t look like any eggplant Parmigiana I had ever seen. It looked like lasagna and the top almost seemed burned, but I dug in anyway. Holy God, was it good. Nothing crusty and breaded and deep-fried, just lovely creamy eggplant in a fabulous sauce with deeply browned cheese on top. We ate it in record time.

I spent time trying to figure out what they did and while I’ll never know for certain, I am pretty sure the eggplant slices were roasted, then layered in a baking dish with shingles of cheese on top, and baked in a very hot oven until the cheese deeply browned.

I made a couple of stabs at it once we got home. One element that can’t be replicated is the superb eggplant grown there; it’s creamy and nearly seedless. The Graffiti variety – mottled purple and white – is a good substitute if available. Their eggplant wasn’t peeled and it wasn’t tough, but I think American eggplant needs peeling.

I also don’t use a lot of Parmigiana – heresy, I know – and instead use whatever cheeses I have on hand. Currently that’s some Dutch Gouda and English cheddar. I have found that covering the top of the eggplant with thinly sliced cheese makes for better browning than shredded cheese.

The disadvantage of this method is that you need a lot of eggplant, since roasting collapses the slices and they shrink. I figure three large eggplants or four medium for an 8″ X 11′ pan.

EGGPLANT PARMIGIANA

• 3 large or 4 medium eggplants
• olive oil
• marinara sauce
• cheese of your choice

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Peel eggplants and slice about 1/2″ thick – no thinner, or they will shrink down to nothing while roasting.

Generously oil a cookie sheet with olive oil. Arrange eggplant slices in a single layer (crowding is fine) and bake about 12 to 15 minutes. Flip each slice. Add a little more olive oil. Bake another 5 to 7 minutes and remove from oven.

Pour a little marinara sauce in a baking dish about 8″ X 11″. Lay slices of eggplant in dish, top with a little marinara (don’t drown them), and sprinkle with some grated cheese (not a lot). Repeat layers until all eggplant is used. Top with marinara and then lay slices of cheese on top. Cover dish with foil.

At this point the dish can be refrigerated for a day. Remove from refrigerator two hours before proceeding.

Bake covered at 375 for about 40 minutes. Remove foil and turn the broiler on. Broil the dish, watching very carefully, until cheese is browned.

This will burn the roof of your mouth as is, so let it cool about 10 minutes before serving.

SPINACH & HERB SAUCE

One of the joys of getting older is your body deciding you’re now going to pay for all the fun you used to have. Last year I had elevated blood sugar. This year my husband needs to adjust to a low-acid diet. Wheee.

Low-acid means cutting out, among other things, tomatoes. You never really realize how many foods are tomato-based or have tomato products in them until you have to eliminate them from your list of favorite things to eat.

Hence, I came up with this sauce for pasta. It contains loads of greens, is a low-fat as you choose to make it, and goes very well on pasta, baked potatoes, or as a pizza sauce. It’s also a beautiful emerald color. I like this on cheese tortellini.

SPINACH AND HERB SAUCE

• 1 tablespoon butter/oil/margarine
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 2 cups milk (I used nonfat but your choice)
• pinch nutmeg
• salt to taste
• 3 cups lightly packed spinach leaves
• 1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley
• 1/2 cup lightly packed fresh basil leaves
• 1/4 cup light packed cilantro leaves (optional)

Over medium heat, melt butter in frying pan about 10″ across. Add flour and stir into the butter. Cook over medium heat for a few minutes, then pour in the milk. Stir to blend the milk with the butter-flour mixture. A whisk will come in handy to break up lumps.

Continue to cook mixture, stirring, until milk boils and thickens. This is not a very thick sauce but it will be like heavy cream. Add a pinch of nutmeg.

Add the greens all at once and cook, stirring, until they are completely collapsed.

Remove from heat and let cool a few minutes.

Pour into a blender container and blitz until mostly pureed. You can also use a stick blender but the greens tend to get stuck on the blades – which is okay, it just takes longer to puree.

Return sauce to pan and heat. Taste again for seasoning.

The sauce is ready to use now, but adding some cheese to melt into it is a very good idea. Blue cheese is particularly delicious.

Makes about 3 cups sauce.

ORANGE AND DATE MUFFINS

Image by Engin Akyurt on Unsplash

I have been making muffins a lot recently – primarily whole-grain, lower-fat, lower-sugar oversized muffins, to stand in place of a fry-up type of breakfast. This is what I made this morning. It’s adapted slightly from a version in Mollie Katzen’s The Enchanted Broccoli Forest (which has a very detailed explanation/recipe for making bread and other baked goods).

I often put dates in oatmeal and cookies. Dates are very sweet and keep extremely well – I store them in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. They’re very high in fiber, antioxidants, potassium, B vitamins, and calcium. While they do contain a lot of naturally occurring sugar (as opposed to processed sugar), here they stand in for added sugar.

The dry ingredients and wet ingredients can be prepped the night before, then combined in the morning and baked to have fresh hot muffins in about half an hour.

ORANGE AND DATE MUFFINS

• 1 cup unbleached white flour
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup raw unprocessed bran or wheat germ or additional whole wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 large orange
• 1 cup pitted dates (about 8)
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk (or milk with a teaspoon of vinegar added and allowed to stand 5 minutes)
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon honey or maple syrup

Preheat oven to 375°. Grease a 12-cup cupcake tin or 6-cup oversize muffin/popover tin.

Combine dry ingredients in large bowl; whisk to combine. Set aside.

Grate zest from orange into a 2-quart bowl. Remove the peel and as much of the white pith as possible and discard. Cut the orange into small pieces over the bowl to catch any juice (remove any seeds). Chop the dates into small bits and add to the orange. Break the egg into the bowl and then pour in the buttermilk and whisk thoroughly to combine egg and buttermilk.

Melt the butter and honey together and slowly pour into the buttermilk mixture, whisking all the time.

Pour buttermilk mixture into dry ingredients and mix just enough to wet all the dry ingredients. Spoon into the greased tins and bake at 375° about 20 – 25 minutes. Test with a toothpick to be sure they are done.

Run a butter knife around each muffin to loosen it, then remove muffins to a cooling rack.

Makes 12 cupcake-sized or 6 oversized muffins.

BEEF RIBS ON THE BBQ

There are short ribs – AKA English cut and flanken ribs – and then there are beef back ribs. Beef back ribs don’t have a lot of meat on them and look scanty and kind of skeleton-y. The meat on them is tough but very flavorful. My mother used to cook them slowly in the oven in some manner that I don’t remember now.

My husband picked some up, thinking he could just throw them on the grill like steaks. I did a little research and found that wasn’t going to work for these ribs, so we figured out a way that works for us.

We have both a small charcoal grill (too small for a rack of ribs) and a gas grill. The gas grill is wide enough for the ribs but gas grills have jets that tend to get clogged up if a lot of grease drips into them, and they’re a bitch to clean up.

Aluminum foil is what we used here, the heavy-duty stuff (the store brand heavy-duty costs virtually the same as the regular).

BBQ BEEF BACK RIBS

There is a membrane along the back side of the ribs. It’s greasy and difficult to get a grip on. You may need to prod at it with the tip of a knife to get a bit of it released so you can grasp it. It’s sort of like trying to find the end of a roll of tape.

If it’s too hard to hold onto, use a dish towel. Pull it off and discard.

Once the membrane is removed, season the ribs. We used Penzey’s Justice and pepper. You can get fancy but I think less is more here.

We made a simple basting sauce: half water, half malt vinegar, a heavy hit of smoked paprika.

Preheat the gas BBQ to about 300°. Tear off 2 sheets of foil about 6″ longer than the rack of ribs. Lay the first sheet of foil on the grill and crimp the edges so that you have little dams all the way around.

The ribs are easier to handle if you cut them in half, but that’s up to individual preference.

Lay the ribs on the foil, lower the lid, and let cook until you hear fat sizzling.

Lift the lid and create a tent with the second sheet of foil. My husband used the warming rack above the grill to make a sort of lean-to but a tent would work too. Hold it down with some stones if necessary (it gets breezy here).

Periodically flip the ribs and baste. The basting liquid we use is similar to what many professional BBQer’s use – vinegar & water. It’s not for flavor so much as it is to keep the meat moist while it loses a lot of fat.

My husband props the grill lid open about halfway.

Keep turning, basting, and grilling with the foil tent. Don’t let the temperature flare up: we’re going low and slow here. Keep the temperature no more than 300°. We are looking at approximately 1 hour for a rack of ribs – could be more, could be less.

The ribs took up two of three burners on the grill. We used the third burner with the grill tray to make some potato wedges.

Ribs will brown without being over a direct flame. Test them with a knife – when done, the meat will be tender.

Remove ribs to platter and keep covered until serving. I think these are perfect as is, but you can smear them with BBQ sauce if so inclined.

Allow the foil on the grill to cool completely before removing and discarding.

1 rack of ribs serves 2 people.

SPARERIBS AND SAUERKRAUT

When I was a kid, the only sauerkraut I knew came in 8-ounce cans and was terrifyingly acidic and awful. It appeared when we had hot dogs and I would always try a microbite of a few strands, but I couldn’t get past that first taste of tin can. I know people my age who never got over the trauma.

I learned to appreciate it later in life as an integral part of a Reuben sandwich. Fresh sauerkraut became available in plastic bags in the refrigerated section of the supermarket, as did sauerkraut in jars, both of which were miles from those little green cans. I made choucroute, a Germanic-Franco dish of pork and sauerkraut.

I even tried my hand at making sauerkraut. You shred cabbage and massage it with salt, set it aside to ferment about six weeks, then can it. After about two weeks it began emitting a smell reminiscent of a long-expired wolverine. While it was interesting and eventually successful, I probably wouldn’t make it again unless I somehow accumulated a lot of cabbages.

It took me a long time to warm up to spareribs and sauerkraut. The versions I tasted were prosaic: sauerkraut dumped onto spareribs with no effort to comingle the two. But I thought it was a dish worth pursuing. After researching German, Polish, Czech versions, this is what I came up with. It was a success. I am putting this down so I can remember what I did.

SPARERIBS AND SAUERKRAUT

• 4 large bone-in country-style spare ribs, about 3 pounds
• oil for browning the ribs
• smoked paprika
• garlic powder (I used Penzey’s roasted garlic)
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 2 apples, chopped
• 1 tablespoon anise seed
• 1 16 ounce jar sauerkraut (I didn’t drain it)
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 cup apple juice

Season the ribs on all sides with the smoked paprika and garlic. In a Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium heat. Brown the ribs on all sides; this may have to be done in batches to avoid crowding.

When ribs have been browned, place them in the bottom of the Dutch oven. Top with half the onions and apples. Arrange the sauerkraut on top and sprinkle with the anise seed and the brown sugar, Top with the rest of the onions and apples. Pour the apple juice in.

Cover the Dutch oven tightly and place in a 300° oven and bake slowly until ribs are fall-apart tender, about 2 hours. Could be a little longer or a little shorter.

Serve with mashed potatoes and buttered rye bread or black bread. I like mustard with this but I could see some BBQ sauce on the side as well.

ANDOUILLE AND COLLARD GREENS SOUP

My husband found this recipe somewhere on the internet. I did a little searching and found that versions of it pop up all over the place, so it’s not original.

Collards grow well here and are wildly nutritious. All winter I’ve been buying them at the farmers market; if I don’t add them to soups or cook them on their own, I cut them into ribbons and put them in salad.

The cornmeal dumplings are easy to mix and are a big part of the appeal of this soup, so don’t skip them. They would also be delicious in other soups.

A couple of notes:

If andouille isn’t available, substitute another sausage like Polish, bratwurst, or garlic.

Mustard greens or turnip greens could be substituted all or in part for collards, though I find them much stronger in flavor and would suggest toning them down by first blanching them in boiling water for about 30 seconds. But if you love them as is, have at it. Softer greens like kale, spinach, beet greens, etc. could be used but have a much shorter cooking time. I would simmer the soup about 30 minutes and then add those the last 5 to 10 minutes, just before adding the dumplings.

ANDOUILLE AND COLLARD GREENS SOUP

• 1 pound andouille
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 cup chopped or sliced yellow onion
• 1 bunch collard greens, about 12 ounces
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (pizza parlor variety)
• 4 cups unsalted or low-sodium chicken stock
• 1 can (about 14 ounces) fire-roasted tomatoes
• 1 cup + water

CORNMEAL DUMPLINGS

• 3/4 cup cornmeal
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Dice the andouille. Tear out the tough collard stems; roll the leaves up and slice them into ribbons.

In a soup pot (holds about 1 gallon), heat the 2 tablespoons olive oil. Add the andouille and sauté about 5 minutes until it starts to brown. Then add the onion, collards, paprika, garlic, pepper, red pepper flakes, and cook until the vegetables cook down and start to wilt, about 5 to 10 minutes. Then add the stock, tomatoes, and water. Bring to a fast simmer, cover, and let cook until collards are done to your liking – depending on the age of the collards, this could be 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours. Adjust heat to keep soup bubbling but not at a hard boil. Add more water if it seems too thick. Taste and add salt if needed, though I found it didn’t need any more.

Make the dumplings: mix all ingredients. When soup is ready, scoop out 1/2 cup potlikker and add to the dry ingredients. Mix until thoroughly combined.

Roll balls of the dumpling dough about the size of a walnut and place them in the soup, spacing apart. This will make about 12 dumplings. Cover the pot and let the dumplings cook about 12 minutes.

Serve hot with some dumplings in each bowl.

ALOHA PUDDING

Image by Ta Verwaij on Unsplash

Years ago I had a fabulous dessert called Aloha Pie. This is that sans pie crust. If you wanted to make it into pie, pour filling into a pre-baked pie crust and refrigerate until set. Otherwise, it’s a fast and easy dessert.

ALOHA PUDDING

• 1/3 cup cornstarch
• 1/4 cup sugar or stevia to taste
• milk, 2 to 3 cups (can use nondairy milk)
• pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon orange extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 sliced firm banana
• 2/3 cup flaked unsweetened coconut
• 1 cup cubed or crushed pineapple (not raw)
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds

Combine cornstarch and sugar in saucepan and whisk together over medium-high heat. Slowly add milk, whisking as the mixture thickens. When pudding is very thick, remove from heat. If using stevia, add now to taste along with salt. Then stir in extract and fruit and nuts.

Sometimes if I am feeling fancy, I add an egg to this: beat one egg in small bowl, then add a spoonful of the hot pudding mixture and beat like crazy. Then slowly pour the egg into the saucepan, beating or whisking like mad to thicken the pudding without scrambling the egg.

Other tropical fruits can be substituted as well as other flavors of extracts. Note: grapefruit will turn this bitter, as I found out.

Refrigerate, covered, for up to three days. After that it gets a little weird.

I also have a much more elaborate, creamier, richer version of Aloha Pie right here.

OVEN FRIES

I am putting this here not because I am doing anything new and exciting but because I want to remember exactly how I made these. They turned out exceptionally well.

OVEN FRIES

• Russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 4 wedges lengthwise
• Grapeseed oil
• Penzey’s Justice

Boil the potato wedges in salted water until tender. Drain thoroughly and let sit about 10 minutes to evaporate excess moisture.

Preheat oven to 375. Lightly oil cookie sheet with grapeseed or other non-strongly-flavored oil.

Scatter potato wedges on cookie sheet. Turn each one over to get a very light coating of oil. Sprinkle with Justice. Bake at 375 about 25 minutes, then turn each potato wedge so each side gets a turn on the cookie sheet. In about 10 minutes, turn them again. Repeat until all sides are browned and crispy.

When perfect, remove to bowl lined with paper towel. Salt or not. Eat with mayo and ketchup.

PUMPKIN PANCAKES

There’s been a small container of pumpkin in the freezer and I wanted pancakes, so this worked out rather well. These have lots of fiber and Vitamins A and C. They taste slightly sweet with no added sugar, are low fat, and are easy to mix up. Serve them with sautéed pears and cottage cheese, yogurt, or sour cream, or syrup and jam.

PUMPKIN PANCAKES

• 1 cup pumpkin puree (not “pumpkin pie filling”)
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour or cake flour
• 1/2 cup raw unprocessed bran
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 -1/2 teaspoons mixed warm spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, allspice)
• 1- 1/4 cups buttermilk (or milk with 1 teaspoon vinegar stirred in and allowed to sit 5 minutes)
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons neutral oil like canola or grapeseed
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

In one large bowl, whisk dry ingredients together. In separate bowl, beat eggs to break yolks and mix with whites, then add other liquid ingredients and whisk thoroughly.

Add liquid ingredients to dry mixture and mix with wooden spoon so that no dry pockets of flour remain. Add more buttermilk if batter seems too thick.

Heat griddle over medium heat until drops of water sizzle immediately. Oil the griddle with neutral oil. Spoon 1/4 cup of batter onto oiled grill, spacing pancakes about 2 inches apart. These will puff up and need to cook slowly so that the center gets done without the outside burning. Adjust heat so they don’t cook too quickly and get brown too fast.

Remove pancakes to a warm plate as cooked; keep warm in oven that was briefly heated, then turned off.

Makes about 12 3-inch pancakes.

SAUTEED PEARS

Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a frying pan over medium heat. When butter is melted and starting to brown, add two thinly sliced Comice pears (no need to peel) and cook, turning as needed, until lightly caramelized and tender.

BLACK BEAN BURGERS

Obligatory explanation:

My husband had dental surgery that left him wih a very sore mouth on one side so he could only eat soft foods. Mashed potatoes, pudding, soggy cereal.

AND he also had to have a blood panel done so he wanted to, uh, make up for all the stuff he’d actually been eating. Sort of like last minute cramming for an exam when you never really attended classes at all.

Meantime, what about me? I’m the one cooking and I really would like… steak. Or something like steak. But he’s unable to chow down and is trying to improve his cholesterol at the last minute. He said, “Oh, don’t worry about me, you cook what you like….”  Yeah, right.

There were a lot of hamburger buns in the fridge and a lot of canned beans on the shelf. Saw a recipe for black bean burgers and went from there. You won’t mistake these for actual cow but they taste good, hold together pretty well for veggie burgers, and can be flavored to suit yourself.  The actual doing doesn’t take long and isn’t complicated, though each step can be done ahead of time if that’s more convienent. The list of ingredients looks long because I use a lot of spices, but those are changeable according to taste.

A food processor made this effortless but a blender would work too if you worked in batches. Or use a potato masher, though the texture will be more crumbly.

BLACK BEAN BURGERS

• 2 14-ounce cans black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 small-to-medium yellow onion, minced (about 1/2 cup)
• 1/4 bell pepper, minced (about 1/4 cup)
• 5-6 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon granulated garlic
• 1 slice bread, your choice (or 1/2 cup commercial bread crumbs)
• 2 eggs or egg substitute
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
• 2 tablespoons ketchup (use Sriracha if you want them hot)
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Spread the drained and rinsed beans evenly on a cookie sheet and stick them in a 325 oven for about 15 minutes. (I know this seems unnecessary but it helps dry them out a bit so you don’t wind up with mushy burgers.)

Saute the onion, bell pepper, and garlic in a frying pan in the oil over low-to-medium heat, stirring frequently. After about 10 minutes add the spices and continue to cook and stur another 5 minutes.

Blitz the bread in a food processor to make crumbs, then add the cilantro (stems are OK) and blitz again to chop the cilantro.

Take the beans out of the oven and add to the crumbs in the food processor. Blitz on and off until the beans have become one with the crumbs, then add the eggs and blitz again.

Scrape the bean mixture into a bowl. Stir in the sauteed vegetables. Taste and add more seasoning if needed. Refrigerate about 1 hour or longer if making ahead.

Generously oil a pan (if putting on a grill, oil some aluminum foil) and heat pan over medium heat until drops of water sprinkled on it sizzle and pop. Scoop out about 1/2 cup bean mixture and place on the pan. Pat down with spatula (or wet your hands and press down) and gently shape into a round patty. Repeat with more beans.

Fry burgers about 8 minutes on each side.

Serve on buns with favorite toppings. Even better, serve in pita bread with yogurt, chopped cucumber, tomatoes, and shredded crisp lettuce.

Depending on how large you make the patties, this makes 4 to 8 burgers.